


Where's That New World?

by elissanerdwriter



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Gun Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elissanerdwriter/pseuds/elissanerdwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on this post: http://elissa-nerd-writer-24601.tumblr.com/post/126916364289/brigantes-deactivated20131003-let-us-teach-them. Look at it at your own discretion, but it could add some visual aid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where's That New World?

It was over.  
They knew this; they had seen their friends fall, one by one, screaming and torn apart by bullets. Bossuet by a bayonet, head tossed back as he tumbled from the barricade. Bahorel as Enjolras reached for his hand, and he landed on the wrong side of the wall. Marius still fighting, and then falling, and then fallen- staring at the sky.  
They hated it, but they had few options left, and so they retreated into the cafe. Combeferre and Joly pulled Jehan behind them, trying to ignore his sobbed pleas of fear, of death; they could not leave him if he had a chance, but one more round was all it took to silence his cries and they had to leave him at the base of the stairs.  
Feuilly was already there, holding his position at the window, making a last bid to protect his family. His motions were desperate, his face pained, but he bought them a few precious seconds. He fell, twisting on the dirty floor, overwhelmed by the troops despite having taken so many of them. Courfeyrac screamed his name. He had screamed too many names that day.  
He never heard it either way.  
Leaving the bodies of their friends behind, they ascended, breaking the steps behind them. Enjolras sent them first, Courfeyrac and Joly supporting Combeferre as he stumbled, then scrambled behind them. Maybe one of them thought for a brief moment they might be safe; who will ever know now. It would only have lasted a moment. They all felt the silence as the mandate for their death, and it was.  
Courfeyrac whimpered softly, lifted his hand to Combeferre’s shoulder. Combeferre raised his remaining pistol, some instinct making him push the other two behind him, hold them back, despite knowing it couldn’t help. Enjolras kept moving, looking for a way to save the four of them, not knowing the way they did that this was their last moment. He was still hopeful.  
The report rang out.  
Joly was first. He didn’t register it at once, the clinical training in his mind overtaking his senses. He mentally tracked the bullets through his body even as he fell. Tibia. Femur. Pelvis. Right lung. Spinal column. Second rib. Third. Clavicle. Skull.  
The voice of his teacher bounced around his mind as his optical nerve failed. “The majority of head wounds do not break through the skull. The majority of those that do are fatal.”  
He thought the bullet was likely to have penetrated his skull. He also thought it was very likely to be fatal.  
He didn’t feel the pain. Trauma, he figured.  
He fell too fast, faster than the others. But for once, he didn’t care if the floor was clean.  
He was gone before he could care.  
Courfeyrac was second. His hand tightened automatically on Combeferre’s sleeve when the first bullet hit his foot, but then a second and a third tore through his leg and his back and he was falling. It felt like he was melting, from the inside out, his whole body screaming with pain and he might have been screaming, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see what was happening, this couldn’t be what death was like it hurt too much-  
Just as he hit the floor, he wondered if this was what Gavroche felt. Jehan and Feuilly and Bahorel and Bossuet and everyone else, if this was what dying felt like. He knew now that was what was happening.  
And as he died, he saw Combeferre and Joly, and Enjolras above them and someone else off to the side and felt overwhelmingly sad, for in that moment he knew none of them would survive. He knew they must all feel this.  
And then he felt nothing.  
Combeferre was last. Five bullets hit him at once, and maybe he would have lifted from the ground like an angel but the weights of his already falling friends pulled him down. Joly’s hand grabbed his arm as if to pull himself up, and Courfeyrac’s as if to never let him leave him behind. He felt his eyes slip shut, his arms flying wide, still trying to protect them. Streaks of pain traced through his body, and his still-running mind dimmed quickly. He had no time for thought, as if for once he would rush headlong into death without realizing first what it entailed.  
He was dead before he landed, twisted on the splintered ground.  
Enjolras reached for them, too late. He was always too late. He stared down at their bodies, unable for once to find a way on. This was it. He couldn’t start anew without them, alone. France would not be free today. The world was still broken, to have left such people to no fate but to be laid broken on the floor of this godforsaken cafe, in this godforsaken street, in this godforsaken city.  
There were soldiers climbing the remainder of the stairs, but he made no move to escape or fight. What was the point? He stared at them, making them meet his eyes, feel the anger and misery burning in him. But it was hardly their fault, was it?  
They spoke, but he heard none of it. He stood, waiting for death, but still wished this didn’t have to be the end. His hopes had shattered with the floor, but his wishes still rose, unbroken.  
The soldiers turned to face him, lining up slowly. They halfheartedly raised their guns, and he kept staring at them, daring them to shoot. To cut his life short.  
The leader took a breath, but before he could give the command, Enjolras saw a movement. Behind the rank, a man climbed up the stairs. He was disheveled and stumbling, but Enjolras recognized him.  
Grantaire looked him full in the face, and he could feel his fire falling in pieces around him. Grantaire wasn’t dead, not yet, and now he was- throwing himself away-  
“No.”  
Grantaire didn’t stop walking, pushing past the guards. He stumbled a bit, and several of them tensed, but he didn’t glance away from Enjolras. He stopped beside him, his eyes softer than Enjolras had ever seen them, and for once said nothing.  
They turned back to the line, together. Enjolras’ hand brushed something and he took hold of it, lifting it instinctively.  
It was the red cloth.  
The guard reassembled, raising their rifles again. The captain met his eyes, and he saw nothing but sadness there.  
“Fire.”  
The muzzles flashed brightly, ten times, eleven. Beneath the soldiers, three bodies were twisted together, broken and still. Enjolras could see them alive, Joly’s happiness, Courfeyrac’s smile, Combeferre’s quiet approval. Jehan’s gentle words. Feuilly’s dedication. Bahorel’s spirit. Bossuet’s laughter.  
Grantaire.  
Gone.  
The first bullet hit him in the chest, the next in the side, tossing him back. In the shoulder, spinning him. His thigh, making him stumble. There was no wall behind him, only open air, and he felt a sick swoop in his stomach as he fell out, hand still clutching the flag. Grantaire fell the other way, still in the room, and he felt the loss of his presence. He never would have thought…  
What would it have been like?  
The new day?  
He would never know.

The streets ran with blood. The sky was dark, as if a certain light had been lost. The women knew what it was. The women saw everything. They were left behind. They cleaned it up.  
What were the dead thinking?

did you see them  
going off to fight  
children of the barricade who didn’t last a night  
did you see them  
lying where they died  
someone used to cradle them and kiss them  
when they cried  
did you see them lying side by side?

who will wake them  
no one ever will  
no one ever told them that  
a summer day can kill  
they were schoolboys  
never held a gun  
fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun  
where’s that new world now the fighting’s done?

nothing changes  
nothing ever will  
every year another brat another mouth to fill  
same old story  
what’s the use of tears  
what’s the use of praying if there’s nobody who hears  
turning  
turning  
turning turning turning through the years

Where’s that new world now the fighting’s done?


End file.
